You’re stuck with plain ‘ol white, and you need to distinguish you & your art from aaaaaaall the other artists out there.  What do you do?

You kick ass, if you’re one of these people:

Marc Johns. Never have I seen so much done with…well, post-it notes and a few scribbles.  Great choice of words.  Quirky, laugh-out-loud funny drawings.

Tara Whitney.  Often emulated, never duplicated.  Tara recently went from a super-colorful,  popping with polka dots layout to this little ditty.  Brilliant.

Bonnie Tsang.  Two columns — an increasingly rare choice for professional photographers.  Simple simple design  and utterly stunning imagery.

Sweet Fine Day. Another two-column layout, this time with marshmallows.  (Really — caramel ones and some meant to be eaten with beer…)  I can’t put my finger on what, exactly, I adore about this blog design, but I’m firmly in heart, and on my way to heart heart hearting.

That Unreliable Girl.  Thinking there’s no way to distinguish your text from other’s text? (Not the actual words you’re writing, but the text itself…) Check out the way that unreliable girl formats a typical blogpost.  Sheer genius.

There ya go: five examples of branding without color.  Layout choices, blockquote choices, consistent use of one’s own handwriting, ridiculously stunning imagery, and one-of-a-kind products distinguish each of these blogs without the use of poppy, punchy, over-the-top design elements.

If your blog went color-less, how would it stand out?

Want to read it on the blog? BRANDING WITHOUT COLOR